Happiness Is A Knife At Your Throat
by CeleryBunch
Summary: It's broken furniture and cuts and bruises, not a fucking relationship. (Rumlow/Rollins, since there ain't tags for them yet. Can we fix that, mods?)


They frighten people for different reasons that are closer to opposite than anything else, despite their overall similarities. Rumlow is calculating, and if he chose to make someone's life a living hell, he did it with a terrifying and thought out focus to the point that if he happened to seems as if paying particular attention to what someone was doing at any given time it was a learned reaction for that someone to get an acute impending sense of doom. Rollins, by contrast, is a landmine; with wires all the same color that no one could know which one to cut to diffuse him. If the former instilled respectable wariness, the latter instilled a paranoia of even breathing too loudly.

Different breeds of psycho, one of the academy brats had whispered. If anyone gave much thought to what had happened to her that she quit shortly after and declined to speak to anyone about it, they had enough brain cells to knock together to never voice it. The lack of grievous bodily harm lent itself to the silent agreement that she'd been met with the less knife-happy of the two; at least outwardly.

For the most part, it's assumed the one is the 'clever' one. It's a gravely mistaken idea. Less a matter of intelligence, it more boiled down to a matter of patience in that one got that in spades and the other never much cared to try for it. The assumption that Rollins isn't quite as bright by virtue of temper is a powerful kind of underestimation that they both allow. And occasionally encourage. Jack's just fine with that idea, since it's both wrong and proves further that everyone else is stupider than either of them.

The exception to the rule, predictably, is each other. And the first thing akin to a right of passage in working with them is learning not to try and get between them when they're intent on ripping each other to pieces; for certain risk of becoming a target of common ground before they go right back to each other.

There's a two inch scar through the meat of Brock's hand between thumb and forefinger that's mirrored on either side. He knows, because he put it there; with a steak knife punched right through. There isn't a scar announcing the shattered collarbone he also left a few minutes later in retaliation for well aimed glass that sliced through his face, but he knows it happened so the lack of corroborating mark isn't much missed. By the end of it, they both felt better in a respect that wasn't physical and Alaska had become its own stand alone chapter amongst the others like Lisbon and Manilla. Ninety percent of their collective scars involve each other and have times and dates and cities and quarrels attached to them. That particular one involves Brock being a cunt and playing Sweet Home Alabama on a loop obnoxiously until he inevitably got a response.

They'd done more damage to each other for much less. They both consider themselves the victor. Rinse, repeat.

He takes to hiding things on top of the fridge or in the highest cupboard. It's utterly petty and fucking hilarious. He sits on the counter, one beer in his hand and the others pushed back to the far reaches of the top of the fridge; a shit eating grin in place. No, he doesn't know where the remote is, have you tried the top cupboard?

Rumlow gives him a look that could strip paint and point blank refuses to rise to the bait, stubbornly refusing to both use a chair to find the remote or concede by manually changing the channel from the children's cartoon on the screen. It's a petty 'fuck you' from both of them and neither budges for another forty-five minutes until Jack snorts and retrieves the remote, pitching it at the other man's head while calling him a pussy. It's caught instead of landing a hit and he ignores Brock's obvious amusement at 'winning'. Asshole.

But one day, he'll win and it'll be fucking worth it. He keeps moving things and Brock keeps on being a dick and not caving. He keeps doing it anyway. Later, Rumlow pins him down and fucks him dry, taser pressed to the curve of his hip, and matter-of-factly muses that if he's going to act like a bitch, he should be treated like one.

He remembers to bring the stun baton with him next time he gets the upper hand, to return the favor. For however much they both spit and hiss about it when 'bested', it's a good system that works. The upper hand. If one happens to get the upper hand on any given day, then the other just deserves to take whatever they fucking get and not be a bitch about it.

It's not 'sleeping together', so much as passing the hell out in the same place and fuck anyone who said different. It's broken furniture and cuts and bruises, not a fucking relationship. It's endless competition, not some bullshit like affection.

And fuck anyone who said different.


End file.
